The French Reconnaissance: Baudin in Australia 1801-1803 by Frank Horner

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Light foxing to top foredge. Dust jacket has light creasing at edges and spine. Dust jacket is now enclosed in protective covering. Interior and binding are also very good.

Few navigators have had such a bad press as Nicolas Baudin: the official account of his major voyage, published after his death, is nothing less than a sustained character assassination, and it set the tone for nearly a century and a half. The picture presented by the expedition's naturalist, Francois Peron, was of an unbalanced man, harsh to the point of cruelty, capricious and tyrannical, willing to abandon his people on barren, unknown shores, and so stupidly incompetent as a seaman.

Yet this inept bully carried through a most arduous three years' voyage without grounding his ship, and in his correspondence with Governor King of New South Wales, showed himself capable of firmness allied with the most remarkable tact. (Foreword)

The resolution of this paradox is the theme of Frank Horner's book.